Latest Contributions by KarlZimmer

Hello, I was working on a ArcGIS 10.1 custom toolbox with several modelbuilder models. It was going well, but I think my harddrive containing the model accidentally was removed and corrupted the toolbox as it no longer shows the models within it when opened in ArcGIS toolbox. Is there a way to repair corrupted toolboxes? Or is it possible to open the .tbx in a text editor or something to at least view the steps of the models so I can at least remember the steps of each model so I can recreate the models in a new toolbox?  The .tbx still shows it is 1,818 KB in size so seems like the models are still saved in there, but just can't figure out a way to access them.  Thanks in advance. ... View more

Hello, I like using the ArcGIS Topographic Basemap as a background layer for my maps, but was wondering if there is a way so that place name labels don't show up on the map. I like to add my own labels for cities and towns of interest, but find the map looks messy with the ArcGIS Basemap place name labels showing as well.  I would actually prefer that the topographic maps had no labels at all. Is it possible to show just the features of the Topographic Basemap without labels? I see there is a options for Places Info int he Table of Contents but it says those layers can't be turned off when I try to click on them. Thanks. ... View more

Hello, I have numerous raster .img files that I'm trying to clip to a feature class containing several irregular shaped polygons. It seems to work correctly for the most part, but it seems pixels around the polygon edges are not always including. It appears there may be a threshold where if >50 % of the pixel isn't covered by the mask it is excluded. However, I would like it so that any pixel intersected by the polygon mask is included.   I have set the cell size and snap to raster environment, but was wondering if there are additional environments I need to set. I have attached a screen shot to show the issue. I have tried both clip and extract by mask and get the same result. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Karl ... View more

Hello, I am trying create a raster that shows road density (m/ha) within 3km radius of the cell.  The line density tool in Spatial Analyst appears to be the tool to do this as it allows for input of a line file (roads), a search radius (3000m), output raster cell size (10m), and area unit (ha). However, upon running the tool I getting results that I don't believe to be correct. For example the maximum value I am getting is 0.27 m/ha, which is way to low of a value considering to the high road density in the area. To double check I converted a portion of the raster to points and buffered those points by 3 km and found the area of road within this buffer. Using this information the road density values come out to around 9 or 10 m/ha which is much more reasonable for the density of roads in the area. The dataframe and road layer is in UTM Zone 12N so the units should be in meters. Any ideas why these results are not correct? I wonder if it has to do with the population field being set to none as in the tool help it indicates the population field is a: Numeric field denoting population values (the number of times the line should be counted) for each polyline. Values in the population field may be integer or floating point. The options and default behaviours for the field are listed below. Use None if no item or special value will be used and each feature will be counted once. Therefore I'm wondering if it is only counting each road line feature the first time it intersects a cell search radius instead of counting it within the search radius of each cell. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Below is my inputs if that helps. Thanks in advance. ... View more

Hello, I am trying to make a geodatabase that I can also edit within Access.  Typically when I've built databases in excel I've used autonumber field to create a uniqueID for each row and then used unique ids for relating tables together. I am now trying to build this is a database so I can view the data in ArcGIS but do most of the editing in Microsoft Access.  When I bring the tables into the geodatabes the unique id (which is an autonumber in Access) automatically becomes the ObjectID in ArcGIS.  This is fine except I'm wondering if it is okay to be using the ObjectID field to be relating relational tables or if I should be using a seperate GUID field instead and if so how do I set up a GUID so it automatically generates a unique id in ArcGIS and/or Microsoft Access. I've never used GUIDs before so I'm not sure how to best approach using them for this problem (if in fact they do work for this specific task) The attached pic shows how my tables are set up in Microsoft Access using unqiue ids with autonumber format in Microsoft Access. Thanks in advance. ... View more

Hello all, I have a few Microsoft Access databases that I would like to convert to geodatabases or at least include some spatial components; however, I have little experience with geodatabases.  Currently, my Microsoft Access database is organzied into several heirarchial tables that are connected through relationships in Access. Example table structure and relationships are shown in the attached photo: This structure works fine for organizing and managing non-spatial attribute data, but now I'm hoping to integrate a spatial component for the conservation site, sample site, and plot paramters . For example, I have a Conservation Site polygon feature class, a sample site polygon feature class, and a plot point feature class. No spatial components are required for the ground, tree, and shrub subtables, but these tables may have further lookup tables associated with them.  My question is can I integrate these 3 feature classes into this structure and if so how do I go about doing this?  In the end I would like to be able to view the points or polygons in ArcGIS and see the underlying attributes of all the subplot tables in ArcGIS, but still be able to edit and append attribute data though a Microsoft Access form and create Microsoft Access reports using the attribute data. Addtionally, in the future I'll need to add additional conservation sites, sample sites, and plots so please keep this as a consideration as well. Any input, advice, or links to further information on this topic would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Cheers, Karl ... View more

Hello, I have a map document with numerous layers. I am looking for a tool or script (preferablly python or potentially VBA) that allows me to select certain features in a polygon layer and then uses this layer to select all features from the other layers in the TOC that intersect this polygon layer. Once features are selected I would like to export the attibute information selected from each layer in the TOC to a report, excel workbook, or txt file. So basically I'm looking to create an summary of all selected features that exist in a certain location as defined by the spatial extent of the polygon layer. Ideally it would be a report that would show the layer name followed by the attribute information of the selected features; although a excel sheet or text file would suffice. An example report for layers titled county, vegetation community, watershed, and wildlife management area and their  respective selections within each may look something like this: County: County of Highlands Vegetation Community: Deciduos Forest Conifer Forest Grassland Watershed: Bow River Wildlife Mangement Area: 306 308 Thank in advance. ... View more